East Asian mathematics, the discipline of mathematics as it developed in China and Japan.

When speaking of mathematics in East Asia, it is necessary to take into account China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam as a whole. At a very early time in their histories, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam all adopted the Chinese writing system, in addition to other cultural institutions. As a result, books produced in any one of these countries could, and actually did, circulate in scholarly circles throughout the region. Scholars versed in mathematics in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam learned at first from Chinese sources, but in time books produced in Japan and Korea found their way to China. (Scholars have not determined the extent of any original mathematical developments made in Korea and Vietnam, and whether such advancements made it back to China.) It may be more appropriate, therefore, to speak not so much of “Chinese mathematics” as of “mathematics in Chinese characters.”

The following discussion of the evolution of mathematical subjects within the Chinese tradition emphasizes several common characteristics: an interest in general algorithms and the importance given to “position” (a place-value notation involving rods or counters), a specific part devoted to configurations of numbers, and the parallelisms between procedures. It covers the history of mathematics in East Asia from ancient times through the region’s direct interaction with the European world in the 17th and 18th centuries—previously, East Asian contact with the West was indirect through ongoing interactions with India and the Islamic world. After this period, mathematics in the East was under the deep influence of mathematics imported from Europe, which Chinese mathematicians tried to synthesize with traditional Chinese mathematics. This paved the way to the adoption, at the end of the 19th century, of mathematics as it was practiced in the West. Thus, for later mathematical developments in the East, seemathematics: Mathematics in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Mathematics in China

The textual sources

Books written in China from the 1st century bce through the 7th century ce and then in the 13th century formed the foundation for the development of mathematics in East Asia. Most subsequent mathematical works refer to them. References found in the surviving mathematical writings from this period, as well as references made in bibliographies compiled for dynastic annals, indicate that there are many gaps in the textual record. The oldest extant works probably survived because they became official books, taught in the context of the Chinese civil examination system.

The most important work in the history of mathematics in Chinese is Jiuzhang suanshu (The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art), which contains arithmetic, algebraic, and geometric algorithms, presented in relation to problems, some of which evoke the duties of the civil administration: surveying fields (areas), levying taxes according to various types of grains (ratios), determining wages for civil servants according to their position in the hierarchy (unequal sharing), measuring planned earthworks to determine labour needs and granaries to determine storage capacity (volumes), levying fair taxes (problems combining various proportions), and so forth. This compilation from the 1st century bce or ce (specialists disagree on the exact date of its completion) has been restored based on two main sources. The oldest extant copy, which is also the oldest existing mathematics book ever printed, dates from 1213. However, only the first five chapters survive. The complete book known today as The Nine Chapters is the result of an 18th-century philological work based on both the former source and exhaustive quotations in a 15th-century Chinese encyclopaedia, Yongle dadian, compiled under the Yongle emperor (1402–24). In any case, like Euclid’s Elements, The Nine Chapters gathered and organized many mathematical achievements (including arithmetic, geometric, and algebraic algorithms) from preceding periods. And like the Elements in the West, The Nine Chapters played a preeminent role in the development of mathematics in East Asia. Most mathematicians referred to it, and most of the subjects that they worked on stemmed from it. Its format, adopted by most subsequent authors, consists of problems for which a numerical answer and a general procedure for solution are given. As with any canonical work, many scholars wrote commentaries on The Nine Chapters, adding explanations and proofs, rewriting procedures, and suggesting new ones. The most important surviving commentary, attributed to Liu Hui (3rd century), contains the earliest Chinese mathematical proofs in the modern sense.

During the 7th century, certain other books were gathered together with The Nine Chapters and a Han astronomical treatise, Zhoubi (“The Gnomon of the Zhou”), by a group under the leadership of imperial mathematician and astronomer Li Chunfeng. This collection, known as Shibu suanjing (“Ten Classics of Mathematics”), became the manual for officials trained in the newly established office of mathematics. Although some people continued to be officially trained as mathematicians thereafter, no advancement in mathematics can be documented until the 11th century. At that time (1084) the “Ten Classics” was edited and printed, an event that seems to have been related to renewed activity in mathematics during the 11th and 12th centuries. This activity is known only through later quotations, but it probably paved the way for major achievements in the second half of the 13th century. At that time China was divided into North and South, and achievements by mathematicians in both regions are known: in the South those of Qin Jiushao and Yang Hui, and in the North those of Li Ye and Zhu Shijie. Mathematical studies in the North and South seem to have developed independently, but they attest to a common basis.

While some major works of the 13th century are recorded in the Yongle dadian, mathematical knowledge quickly deteriorated, as demonstrated by commentaries on these books written by the end of the 15th century that show that they were no longer understood. By the 17th century few ancient Chinese mathematical works were available. Thereafter, as Chinese scholars became aware of European achievements, they began to look for such works throughout the country and strove to interpret them. The end of the 18th century saw a large movement of editing rediscovered texts. These critical editions are the main sources today for the history of Chinese mathematics. Discoveries of new sources are now rare, though in the 20th century a mathematical book was found in a grave sealed before the end of the 2nd century bce, pushing back by centuries the earliest known source on the subject. It is possible that archaeology will bring to light new findings and provoke a revolution comparable to that experienced in the historiography of China in general.

The great early period, 1st–7th centuries

The Nine Chapters

The Nine Chapters presupposes mathematical knowledge about how to represent numbers and how to perform the four arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In it the numbers are written in Chinese characters, but, for most of the procedures described, the actual computations are intended to be performed on a surface, perhaps on the ground. Most probably, as can be inferred from later accounts, on this surface, or counting board, the numbers were represented by counting rods (see the figure) that were used according to a decimal place-value system. Numbers represented by counting rods could be moved and modified within a computation. However, no written computations were recorded until much later. As will be seen, setting up the computations with counting rods greatly influenced later mathematical developments.

The Nine Chapters contains a number of mathematical achievements, already in a mature form, that were presented by most subsequent books without substantial changes. The most important achievements are described briefly in the rest of this section.

Arithmetic of fractions

Division is a central operation in The Nine Chapters. Fractions are defined as a part of the result of a division, the remainder of the dividend being taken as the numerator and the divisor as the denominator. Thus, dividing 17 by 5, one obtains a quotient of 3 and a remainder of 2; this gives rise to the mixed quantity 3 + 2/5. The fractional parts are thus always less than one, and their arithmetic is described through the use of division. For instance, to get the sum of a set of fractions, one is instructed to

multiply the numerators by the denominators that do not correspond to them, add to get the dividend. Multiply the denominators all together to get the divisor. Perform the division. If there is a remainder, name it with the divisor.

This algorithm corresponds to the modern formula a/b + c/d = (ad + bc)/bd. The sum of a set of fractions is itself thus the result of a division, of the form “integer plus proper fraction.” All the arithmetic operations involving fractions are described in a similar way.

Algorithms for areas and volumes

The Nine Chapters gives formulas for elementary plane and solid figures, including the areas of triangles, rectangles, trapezoids, circles, and segments of circles and the volumes of prisms, cylinders, pyramids, and spheres. All these formulas are expressed as lists of operations to be performed on the data in order to get the result—i.e., as algorithms. For example, to compute the area of a circle, the following algorithm is given: “multiply the diameter by itself, triple this, divide by four.” This algorithm amounts to using 3 as the value for π. Commentators added improved values for π along with some derivations. The commentary ascribed to Liu Hui computes two other approximations for π, one slightly low (157/50) and one high (3,927/1,250). The Nine Chapters also provides the correct formula for the area of the circle—“multiplying half the diameter and half the circumference, one gets the area”—which Liu Hui proved.

Solution of systems of simultaneous linear equations

The Nine Chapters devotes a chapter to the solution of simultaneous linear equations—that is, to collections of relations between unknowns and data (equations) where none of the unknown quantities is raised to a power higher than 1. For example, the first problem in this chapter, on the yields from three grades of grain, asks:

3 bundles of top-grade grain, 2 bundles of medium grade, and 1 bundle of low grade yield 39 units of grain. 2 bundles of top grade, 3 bundles of medium grade, and 1 bundle of low grade yield 34 units. 1 bundle of top grade, 2 bundles of medium grade, and 3 bundles of low grade yield 26 units. How many units does a bundle of each grade of grain yield?

The procedure for solving a system of three equations in three unknowns involves arranging the data on the computing surface in the form of a table, as shown in the figure. The coefficients of the first equation are arranged in the first column and the coefficients of the second and third equations in the second and third columns. Consequently, the numbers of the first row, comprising the first coefficient in each equation, correspond to the first unknown. This is an instance of a place-value notation, in which the position of a number in a numerical configuration has a mathematical meaning. The main tool for the solution is the use of column reduction (elimination of variables by reducing their coefficients to zero) to obtain an equivalent configuration. Next, the unknown of the third row is found by division, and hence the second and the first unknowns are found as well. This algorithm is known in the West as Gauss elimination.

The algorithm described above relies in an essential way on the configuration given to the set of data on the counting surface. Because the procedure implies a column-to-column subtraction, it gives rise to negative numbers. The Nine Chapters describes detailed methods for computing with positive and negative coefficients that enable problems involving two to seven unknowns to be solved. This seems to be the first occurrence of negative numbers in the history of mathematics.

Square and cube roots

In The Nine Chapters, algorithms for finding integral parts of square roots or cube roots on the counting surface are based on the same idea as the arithmetic ones used today. These algorithms are set up on the surface in the same way as is a division: at the top, the “quotient”; under it, the “dividend”; one row below, the “divisor”; at the bottom, auxiliary computations. Moreover, the algorithms are written out, sentence by sentence, parallel to each other, so that their similarities and differences become clear.

Commenting on these algorithms, Liu Hui suggested that one could continue computing the nonintegral portion of a root in the same way, setting 10 as denominator for the first subsequent digit, 100 as denominator for the first two digits, and so on; he thus gave the root in terms comparable to decimal fractions. Moreover, in case the algorithm, which generates digit-by-digit the root of an integer N, did not stop with the digit for the units (N was not a perfect square), The Nine Chapters stated that another way of providing the result of the square root algorithm should be used: the root should be given in the form “side of N,” which should be understood to mean “square root of N.” Thus, quadratic irrationals (an irrational number that is the solution to some quadratic equation of the kind x2 = N) were introduced in ancient China and the commentaries attest to their use in computations.

The procedure for extracting square roots was also applied to the solution of quadratic equations (in modern notation, equations of the form x2 + bx = c). The quadratic equation appears to have been conceived of as an arithmetic operation with two terms (b and c). Moreover, the equation was thought to have only one root. The theory of equations developed in China within that framework until the 13th century. The solution by radicals that Babylonian mathematicians had already explored has not been found in the Chinese texts that survive. However, the specific approach to equations that developed in China occurs from at least the end of the 12th century onward in Arabic sources, where it is meshed with approaches from other parts of the ancient world.

Problems involving right triangles

Right-angled triangles also constituted a domain in which research continued until the 13th century in China. The so-called Pythagorean theorem is given, under an algorithmic form, in The Nine Chapters. Algorithms are provided to solve various problems on right triangles such as the following: “Given the base, and the sum of the height and of the hypotenuse, find the height and the hypotenuse.” Other algorithms are given for determining the diameter of an inscribed circle and the side of an inscribed square.

The commentary of Liu Hui

Liu Hui’s 3rd-century commentary on The Nine Chapters is the most important text dating from before the 13th century that contains proofs in the modern sense. His commentary on the algorithms for computing the volumes of bodies exemplifies the kind of mathematical work that he carried out throughout the book for the sake of exegesis. Liu proved the algorithms already presented in The Nine Chapters, and he also provided and proved new algorithms for the same three-dimensional volumes. In addition, he organized these algorithms, given one after the other without comment in The Nine Chapters, into a system in which proofs for one algorithm use only algorithms that had already been established independently. He used a small set of proof techniques, including dissection (even into an infinite number of pieces), decomposition into known pieces and recomposition, and a simplified version of what became known later in the West as Cavalieri’s principle, which states that, if two solids of the same height are such that their corresponding sections at any level have the same areas, then they have the same volume. (See the figure.) More precisely, Liu deduced the volume of a solid whose cross sections are circles by circumscribing each section with a square. (A finer version of Cavalieri’s principle was used by Zu Gengzhi in the 5th century to establish the correctness of the algorithm computing the volume of a sphere.)

The great importance of Liu Hui’s commentary on The Nine Chapters lies in the fact that he proved the correctness of algorithms not only in geometry but also in arithmetic and algebra. In the course of proving algorithms given in various sections of the work, he compared them with one another and demonstrated how the same formal operations, which he called the “key steps” of computation, are brought into play in different algorithms. For example, in comparing the procedures for adding fractions and for solving simultaneous linear equations (described above)—a comparison which is carried out while establishing their correctness—Liu showed that sets of numbers are involved (numerator and denominator for a fraction, the coefficients of an equation for systems of equations) which share the property that all the numbers of a set can be multiplied by the same number without altering the mathematical meaning of that set. Both algorithms, Liu showed, proceed by multiplying the sets of numbers that enter into a problem, each by an appropriate factor, in such a way that some corresponding numbers of the sets are made equal and the other numbers are multiplied to keep intact the meaning of the whole sets. In the case of fractions, the denominators are made equal, and the numerators are changed appropriately. For linear equations, the procedure is the same as if two numbers in the same row but in different columns were made equal by an appropriate multiplication, so that one of them can be eliminated through a column-to-column subtraction; the whole columns are then multiplied by the same number so that the equations remain valid. Liu proceeded from these analogies to state new algorithms for the same problems.

The “Ten Classics”

For reasons that are still unclear, explications of the mathematical knowledge presupposed by The Nine Chapters (such as the numeration system and arithmetic operations) first appeared in later books that eventually were included in the “Ten Classics of Mathematics.” Most of the subjects dealt with in the later canonical works of mathematics from ancient China relied on algorithms presented in The Nine Chapters, although sometimes they used versions of these algorithms that had a more limited range of applications.

Nevertheless, it is possible to see an ongoing evolution of some of these topics, such as root extraction and the solution of equations. For example, Sunzi suanjing (“Sunzi’s Mathematical Classic”) and Zhang Qiujian suanjing (“Zhang Qiujian’s Mathematical Classic”), both probably written before the 5th century and included in the “Ten Classics,” employed new descriptions of algorithms for the extraction of square and cube roots. The underlying procedures were the same, and they were still described in parallel ways, but the new descriptions showed more clearly the underlying mathematical object that is responsible for their similarity—namely, the equation. What changed in the descriptions was that, just as division involved a single divisor, square root extraction was shown to have two divisors and cube root extraction three divisors. (These divisors actually are coefficients of the equations that underlie the root extractions.) The divisors were shown to play similar roles in the algorithms. Moreover, in setting up the algorithms, the divisors were arranged one above the other, yielding a place-value notation for the underlying equations: the row in which a number occurred was associated with the power of the unknown whose coefficient it was. However, at that time equations were neither written nor conceptualized in terms of such a place-value notation. Early in the 7th century, Wang Xiaotong generalized the cube root extraction method to solve some third-degree equations using counting rods. It was only much later that the concept and representation of equations begat a full-fledged place-value notation.

The “Ten Classics” also attests to research on topics that were not mentioned in The Nine Chapters but that were to be the subject of some of the highest mathematical achievements of the Song and Yuan dynasties (960–1368). For example, “Sunzi’s Mathematical Classic” presents this congruence problem:

Suppose one has an unknown number of objects. If one counts them by threes, there remain two of them. If one counts them by fives, there remain three of them. If one counts them by sevens, there remain two of them. How many objects are there?

The procedure used to solve the problem is difficult to understand, because it is described in a very condensed manner. But it clearly belongs to the tradition that eventually led to a general algorithm for solving such problems.

Scholarly revival, 11th–13th centuries

Theory of root extraction and equations

Research appears to have resumed in the 11th century with the reediting of the “Ten Classics” and the production of new commentaries. Within this context new developments took place in branches of mathematics that had been explored at least since The Nine Chapters, attesting to a continuity of mathematical practice. For example, regarding root extraction, in the 11th century Jia Xian is said to have given an algorithm for finding a fourth root using a method similar to the one now known as the Ruffini-Horner method. Jia’s algorithm operated on a column of rows set up on the counting surface in such a way that it still involved a place-value notation for the underlying equations. The intermediate values obtained in each row (actually the coefficients of the underlying equations) resulted from operations that involved only the numbers located in the rows below. Again, the algorithm made use of the configuration given to this set of numbers in an essential way. In addition, the procedures used to compute the successive numbers in any row were all the same. The new algorithm highlighted that the rows experience the same transformations throughout the procedure—indicating a continued interest in the homogeneity of row operations in the descriptions of square and cube root extraction. As a consequence, division, square root extraction, and cube root extraction now appeared to be particular cases of the same general operation, which also covered extraction of nth roots. In fact, only the number of rows on which the algorithm operated determined the nature of the operation: three rows for a square root, four rows for a cube root, and so on.

More generally, research on the solution of equations also resumed and revealed that the same basic algorithm could be extended to find a root of any algebraic equation. The first step documented in this direction, by the 11th- or 12th-century scholar Liu Yi, was finding roots of quadratic equations that have positive or negative coefficients. The coefficients, whatever their sign, were entered in the table for root extraction, and the square root algorithm was adapted to each situation.

Later, Qin Jiushao’s Shushu jiuzhang (1247; “Mathematical Treatise in Nine Chapters”) attested to the use of an algorithm extending Jia Xian’s procedure to find “the” root of any equation. (Most Chinese mathematicians still clung to the idea that an equation had just one proper solution.) By that time, general equations of any degree were used and were represented by a full-fledged place-value notation. This seems to indicate that it was the slow evolution of the algorithms of root extraction and their comparison that produced a fully developed concept of the equation. Similar methods (with a slightly different notation) were well known to Li Ye, and his Ceyuan haijing (“Sea Mirror of Circle Measurements”), written only one year after Qin completed his book, takes the search for the root of equations for granted. Li lived in North China, while Qin lived in the South, and is thought to have worked without knowing Qin’s achievements. It is thus highly probable that these methods were well known before the middle of the 13th century.

In parallel to Jia Xian’s algorithm described above, another method developed for determining an nth root or finding the root of an equation of any degree, using the coefficients of what is now called Pascal’s triangle and the same place-value representation (see the figure).

The method of the celestial unknown

Li Ye’s book also contains a method, unknown to Qin Jiushao, that seems to have flourished in North China for some decades before Li completed “Sea Mirror of Circle Measurements.” This method explains how to use polynomial arithmetic to find equations to solve a problem. Li’s book is the oldest surviving work that explains this method, but it was probably not the first to deal with it. In this book polynomials are also arranged according to a positional notation. Thus, x2 − 3x + 5 + 7/x2 is represented as

A character is added next to the 5 (replaced by a dot on the image) to indicate that it is a constant term. The location of the coefficient indicates the power of the indeterminate with which it is associated. This indeterminate is called “the celestial unknown.”

Research continued on these topics for several decades, as can be seen from the completion in 1299 of Suanxue qimeng (“Introduction to Mathematical Science”) by Zhu Shijie, which devotes some problems to presenting the “procedure of the celestial unknown.” Moreover, it is known that some mathematicians used this representation for polynomials in two or three unknowns; however, their writings are lost. In his second surviving book, Siyuan yujian (“Precious Mirror of the Four Elements”), Zhu made use of four unknowns. Starting from the centre of the counting board, in the two horizontal and the two vertical directions, he put in increasing order of their powers what came from each of the four unknowns. As soon as positive and negative powers of the indeterminates or too many mixed terms occurred, however, he had to use tricks that were in conflict with the principles of the place-value notation. In problems where there was more than one unknown, he had to use a method of elimination of a common unknown between two equations.

Chinese remainder theorem

Qin Jiushao’s book also contains algorithms for the general congruence problem, an example of which was given in Sunzi’s 5th-century treatise, where its solution was too obscure to be understood. This problem amounts to determining a number, the remainders of which are known when it is divided by given numbers (called moduli). There is no extant work between Sunzi’s treatise and Qin’s book of 1247 that reveals how this algorithm was elaborated. Such problems seem to have been worked out because of calendrical computation. Qin introduced his discussion by saying that his goal was to clarify several procedures used by astronomers who were applying them without understanding them. His solution is known today as the Chinese remainder theorem. He dealt with the case when moduli are relatively prime, and he then reduced the case when they are not by first eliminating common factors. The first case is easily solved when x can be found that satisfies the congruence xa ≡ 1 (mod b), a and b being two given relatively prime numbers (suppose a < b). Qin gave an algorithm for this, using a sequence of quotients in searching for the greatest common divisor of a and b, which is also the sequence of convergents for the continued fraction for b/a. Having them, he was then able to compute x.

Fall into oblivion, 14th–16th centuries

Little is known about what happened to Chinese mathematics after Zhu Shijie, but surviving books from the following centuries attest to a progressive loss of the great achievements of the Song-Yuan period. In the 16th century a mathematician’s comments on Li Ye’s “Sea Mirror of Circle Measurements” show that the method of the celestial unknown was no longer understood. By the 17th century it seems to have been completely forgotten. Rods were then no longer used as a counting tool, so perhaps Chinese algebraic place-value notations, deprived of the instrument on which they were based, could not be understood.

On the other hand, there was a rapid diffusion of the abacus, for which many books were written. One of them, the Suanfa tongzong (“Systematic Treatise on Mathematics”) by Cheng Dawei (1592), had a special significance. In addition to its detailed treatment of arithmetic on the abacus, it provided a summa of mathematical knowledge assembled by the author after 20 years of bibliographic research. Re-edited several times through the 19th century, the “Systematic Treatise” was the main source—and still is an important source—available to scholars in China, and more generally in East Asia, concerning mathematics as it developed in China’s tradition.

When European missionaries arrived in China at the end of the 16th century, they found people interested in science (so that the missionaries were accepted in China because of their scientific knowledge) but unaware of their own past in mathematics. An era of translations of Western works then started, the first six books of Euclid’s Elements being translated by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi in 1607. In parallel to this process of translation, Chinese scholars attempted to find ancient books, to understand them, and to synthesize the Chinese and Western traditions. In the 18th century, with the help of Western algebra, Mei Juecheng deciphered the ancient texts dealing with the method of the celestial unknown. This triggered a renewed search for ancient Chinese sources and attempts to revive mathematical research with traditional Chinese methods.